Parker Lot
Parker Lot 'is a webcomic that began May 30, 2009, written and illustrated by BuddyComics. The comic features a middle school student named Matt Parker, the titular character, and his life at school, home, and in the city Dayon, with his best friends Jim Warner, Scooter Williams, and Robby the Robot and his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Parker. The comic features regular comedy, slapstick humor, and even dark humor with graphic violence sometimes a subject. The comic has been running since it first began and originally was twice a week, Sundays and Wednesdays, but the schedule was dropped. The comic began as a pilot called "Drugs" which featured a college student on a trip in his basement. That then inspired a short strip about a family called The Parkers and then Parker Lot, which changed slightly before becoming a webcomic. The comic has been added to several sites such as deviantART, Flickr, Tumblr, and it even got a wiki. Parker Lot has recieved positive reviews based on the humor of the comics and the characters and concept in each strip. The comic has many favorites, pageviews and comments on the sites that it is regularly uploaded to as well as several pieces of fan art from the fans. Since it has began, the comic had its first story arc in October with The Parker Lot Halloween Special, which introduced Scooter Williams for the first time. As of October 26, 2012, there have been 225 comics posted after there were 29 comics in 2009, 101 in 2010, and 61 in 2011. More story arcs have been planned for Parker Lot with the main characters going to the moon, Matt's birth, and the introduction of the Parker family's new dog with possible guest comics or even a crossover with another comic, an idea since the comic began. Origins and development ''Main articles: "Drugs" and "Parker Lot (original concept)" After struggles to make a new project, BuddyComics made a short cartoon called "Drugs" in March 2009 on his computer. After long work, BuddyComics abandoned the cartoon and left it unfinished. However, in May that year, he designed a little comic for fun called '''The Parkers, featuring a family of two parents (Wally Parker and Susan Parker) a middle school student (Matt Parker), an older brother, and a younger brother. The idea was changed a little bit, without the brothers, and featured Matt and other kids who would become Jim Warner, Scooter Williams, and Robby the Robot in a secret club. He later added more kids such as football players, cool kids, nerds, and teachers. The comic featured a new style of cartooning other than his previous comics. Then that month, after small edits on characters and new synopsis, Parker Lot debuted on deviantART with a few promotional images and two comic strips. A YouTube account was created also, for animations to be added later. The comic proved to be successful with many people asking when Parker Lot would begin. The comic later made its way to such sites as DrunkDuck, SheezyArt, Newgrounds, SmackJeeves, and many others. Parker Lot now runs only on deviantART, Flickr, Tumblr, and its own website. Sypnosis The comic deals with the life of Matt Parker, his parents, best friends Jim and Scooter, and other people he meets in life. He ends up in much trouble with the conflicts Jim gets the two into. His two parents do not understand him, neither do his best friends Jim, who is unusually unintelligent than Matt, or Scooter, who is the smartest student and his class and proved it by building a robot which he named Robby. Matt is usually at school having problems with his teachers and sometimes tries to fit in with the real world. The comic usually has stories and as of October 2010, it takes place in Dayon, Ohio, a parody of the real life Dayton, Ohio. Other recurring plot-lines were added to the series later on, such as the addition of Matt's stalker, Sandra Summers, Jim's usual conflicts with Principal Fredericks, Robby's enemy Carl the Cyborg, as well as the various interactions between characters. Themes Parker Lot is an average comedy strip, which features slapstick comedy and double entendres throughout each comic. Some comedy can be very dark, such as Jim ripping off his own arm after misunderstanding that Matt needed a hand. Some comedy however, is more Looney Tunes-like humor such as Jim getting crushed by an anvil instead of slipping on a banana in front of him. The character Matt is given a typical personality of feeling one of his own and sometimes misunderstood by others. The comic also deals with average problems and sometimes parodies real topics in life as well as several movies, television shows, bands, and other comics. Characters Main article: List of characters *'Matt Parker' is a middle school student and main character, aged about 12. He likes video games, cartoons, but isn't the best student in his class. He has two parents, his mom and dad, and a wide family tree. His best friend is Jim, who is less smarter than him and Matt usually gets in trouble Jim causes. However, they remain good friends overall. He wears a green shirt, jeans, and wavy, black hair. His full name is a combination of Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the creators of South Park. *'Jim Warner' is Matt's best friend, the same age as Matt. He is the worst student in the class and often gets hurt or catches on fire. His problems usually get Matt involved and he has to find a way out of trouble. Sometimes, he goes to great lengths to rip off his entire arm. He appears the most, next to Matt, who is the lead character. He wears a gray sweatshirt, jeans, and seems to have a 50's-like blonde hair. Recently, he's playing more primary roles in comics. *[[Scooter Williams|'Scooter Williams']] is the smartest student in the entire class and the whole school. He has more different intrests than his peers, such as studying, reading, and schoolwork. He once built a robot in the Robotics class at his school whom he would name Robby. Scooter won the Nobel Prize for Physics for this accomplishment and making one of the first robots ever. He has hair similar to Matt's, has a red-yellow striped shirt, jeans, and is the only one of his friends to wear glasses, a very dismal trait. *'Robby the Robot '''is an award-winning robot that is considered one of the first ever. He was built by Scooter in 2004 in the Robotics class. This achievement later got Scooter the Nobel Prize for Physics. Robby is actually smarter than Scooter, featuring unlimited information that is able to be reached. Robby has tentacle-like arms and also has a red torso that looks like a shirt. Robby is very friendly, although he has an enemy named Carl the Cyborg, who attempted to kill him in very many apppearances. *'Walter "Wally" Parker' and 'Susan Woodman Parker, better known as '''Mr. and Mrs. Parker, are Matt's parents. Walter Parker met Susan Woodman in a resturant when she was a waitress. They married in 1989, and had a child eight years later, who they named Matt. Matt's parents do not seem to understand Matt at all. In fact, they can get quite annoyed with him when he doesn't follow directions exactly or misplaces things. More recently, Wally has developed into more of a moron, with many wacky situations and accidents caused by him, and Susan becomes the caretaker of Wally's mistakes and the family's safety. *'Sandra Summers '''is another of Matt's classmates and is his stalker. She tracks Matt down with several methods, such as poking him on Facebook, finding loopholes in his restraining order against her, and on Christmas, using a mistletoe to get Matt to kiss her. Originally a one-time character formed as a bit joke, she evolved into a regular part of the comic, and becoming a primary character. She is fairly popular with the fans, with most people liking her comics the most out of Parker Lot's archive of comic strips. Comics ''Main article: List of comics Comic strip The comic currently airs in short, three-panel strips that start with the event in the first, climax in the second, and punch-line in the third. Comics are posted weekly, although they are sometimes delayed. Some instances of delay include a nearly-month long hiatus of Parker Lot, when the design was changed to avoid confusion of another comic. Sometimes, comics are split into parts of a big comic that continues within weeks. In 2010, the comic schedule was expanded to Sundays and Wednesdays, two of BuddyComics' favorite days so more comics can be made and also more room for the upcoming story arcs, starting with the thirty-first comic, which was part of The Birth of Matt. The 100th comic was on September 15, 2010, which interrupted Jim and Robby's Excellent Adventure. In 2011, BuddyComics dropped the schedule due to difficulty, but the schedule became Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in Summer 2012. Story arcs For certain times, story arcs are the focus of the strip. Some story arcs include the first two comics which were together as two parts of one long story arc of Matt's first day of school. The two comics were only two of the comics originally made for the original concept of Parker Lot. The first official story arc of Parker Lot was the Halloween special. The arcs that followed were The Birth of Matt, Matt on the Moon, Jim and Robby's Excellent Adventure, Robby's Rival, and many more are in the works. A story for each main character is expected in 2011. Format The comic from the first all the way to the end of the Halloween special was in regular comic strip form, with white and simple letters that said, "Parker Lot, created by BuddyComics". Before the Special ended, BuddyComics premiered a new look to look more updated with black colors and green letters with the original title and including they year that the comic was made, which was 2009 at the time of the new format. For the first anniversary, a new format started with the seventy-third comic, the comic exactly one year from the first, which was much larger and had a 8-bit font theme, but remained with the same colors as the previous format. On occasions, the panels in the comic can be from one, two, four, or six. Robby's Rival featured comics with three, four, and six panels. Production BuddyComics makes his comics with MS Paint and sometimes, if necessary, edits them on Paint.NET. He makes the comics two times a week and sometimes they end being made daily or even monthly. He says that the easiest character to draw is Jim and the hardest is Scooter. He also says drawing Matt and Scooter is a very difficult task when doing so. He usually makes in .bmp or .png file so it's easier to edit and he only adds .jpg and .gif for the final edit. Making a comic takes only about a few minutes and in some cases, for even a hour. During his work, BuddyComics mostly draws with his laptop but finds a regular home computer the best to draw with. Often as a joke, BuddyComics often adds himself in the comic, usually in crowd scenes. In the first twenty comics of Parker Lot, the design of the comic strip resembled a newspaper comic strip with all white and the words, "Parker Lot - Created by BuddyComics". After The Halloween Special, the comic went through a new format with darker colors and a black background. The font was changed at the top with green and the words, "Created by BuddyComics, 2009-2010" was added at the bottom. The font in each speech bubble was changed to look more modern, from "Arial Black" to "Corbel" to "Arial" on Windows Vista and then "Arial" on Windows XP. But in 2012, the comic will switch from font to handwritten dialogue by BuddyComics himself. The drawing period for Parker Lot usually takes about a hour or even less, as BuddyComics sets a deadline to upload the comic by either Tuesday or Saturday at 9:00PM as people from the east coast read the comic. Sometimes BuddyComics delays it by an hour or later, since he usually has plans. In designing each comic, he designs it out on random days, ranging from one day to making the comic or even half a year. Shading is another detail used sometimes in the comic, but only used in special detailed drawing or in times showing campfires, such as an animation. BuddyComics writes and draws the whole comic himself, with no help. The first two comics, the eighth, ninth, and tenth comic, and the one hundred and first comic were drawn on a different computer on Windows XP's Paint, as opposed to the usual Windows Vista Paint from comics three to seven, eleven to one hundred, and one hundred two to all the comics that followed. The main reasons for being drawn on a different computer is when BuddyComics is away or his computer is unavailable to him. The first two were drawn since it was the only computer available to BuddyComics after he planned Parker Lot. Starting in May 2011, Parker Lot started being drawn in the image software GIMP. The process of the comic changed as well. The comics are starting to be drawn before planned in order to be uploaded on time. Also, although Parker Lot's being drawn in GIMP, it will be colored in Paint.NET, and outlined and the speech bubbles will be done in Paint, the original program. Comics may also be sketched on some occasions. After a short hiatus, Parker Lot returned to using Paint, the program most people thought made the comic known for. After much hesitation however, the comic returned to GIMP during "The Beginning" to enhance the design. Influences See also: Cultural references The main influences of Parker Lot are the styling and humor of Edd Gould, creator of Eddsworld, who he added as a cameo in the first comic posted. Some other people who inspired BuddyComics into animating include Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons and Futurama, Seth McFarlane of Family Guy, and Trey Parker and Matt Stone of South Park, whose names inspired Matt's full name. The first look of Parker Lot looked more like Eddsworld and the second look resembled more Simpsons-like eyes but with the Eddsworld touch. Matt's appearance was based on BuddyComics' best friend, who happens to be a fan of the comic. Matt's personality was based more on Malcolm in the Middle, however. Some of the comedy and slapstick humor came from Tom and Jerry-era cartoons from Hanna-Barbera and Tex Avery. Many parodies have been added to shows, movies, video games, comics, and paintings in drawings and the comics of Parker Lot. BuddyComics also claims the animated series, "Phineas and Ferb" with its kids majority and humor as an influence. Media BuddyComics has made more media for Parker Lot, such as a web game to be finished called "Parker-Man", which features Matt in Pac-Man's place with Jim as the ghosts. A compilation book of the the first comics of Parker Lot is also in the works and is expected to be finished in a long time. BuddyComics is also in the works of a possible animated series made in Flash or even an actual movie, which BuddyComics has considered making. Reception and influence BuddyComics has recieved, such as this picture featuring the main cast, drawn by Moon-manUnit-42 on deviantART]] The comic opened to generally positive reviews on all of its sites with many positive favorites, comments, ratings, and watchers, or subscribers on the official channels. Even Edd Gould, the creator of Eddsworld, commented positively on one of BuddyComics' videos on YouTube, which was ironically a Parker Lot video. Some other fans include some of BuddyComics' real-life friends or friends from YouTube or deviantART. The comic has also had high praise for its stories and characters and anticipation for upcoming comics and story arcs, which get many views, comments and favorites on the sites it is featured on. The comic has even built up a large fanbase with some fan art being made by such users as Moon-manUnit-42, one of BuddyComics' friends who even drew BuddyComics and the main cast of Parker Lot in his own style. Another user, MewMewMinto1123, drew BuddyComics in real-life with a crayon and a marker and put it up on deviantART for all, including BuddyComics to see, BuddyComics said he was deeply flattered and was very happy. The feedback has also put up high numbers for BuddyComics. See also *BuddyComics *Drugs External links *http://www.parkerlot.tk *http://www.parkerlot.deviantart.com *http://www.buddycomics.tumblr.com *http://www.flickr.com/photos/52385150@N04/ Category:Featured Articles Category:Webcomics Category:BuddyComics